


A Well-Deserved Rest

by lily8007



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond
Genre: Brutalia, F/M, Growing Old Together, Old Married Couple, Retired Bruce Wayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 13:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17561408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily8007/pseuds/lily8007
Summary: Just a couple of snowbirds from Gotham City, enjoying the retired life with a vacation to warmer climes. At least, until some criminals decidetheirvacation home is the one to approach.Pity the bad guys. They had no idea this charming old couple consists of a retired vigilante and his wife the former assassin.Oops.(This will be my free space fill forTrope Bingo Round Twelve, and the prompt I chose to fill is Marriage.)





	A Well-Deserved Rest

**Author's Note:**

> We were discussing Batman Beyond on the FYeah Talia Discord server, and how sad an ending Talia got on that show. Cremellia wished she could see an older Bruce and older Talia, just ... happy together.
> 
> I was happy to oblige.

The sunset was almost vulgar in its extravagance, lurid reds and purples streaking the sky over the Gulf, while the sun itself burned like a drop of molten gold as it disappeared behind the water. Waves lapped softly beneath the dock, an almost musical undertone to the conversation between the couple sitting in deck chairs and watching the sun's descent.

The Waynes might superficially fit the description of an old married couple. But no one would call them ‘elderly’, though they had both left middle age behind years ago. Bruce's once-black hair had turned entirely white at the temples, his face was graven with stern lines, and the cane at his side was a necessity rather than an affectation. Talia wore her years a little more lightly, but had allowed her hair to go iron-gray, and declined the vanity that some women her age indulged in to smooth their faces to a facsimile of youth. The lines at the corners of her eyes were from smiling, and she cherished them as only one who’d had too few occasions to smile could.

Still, his shoulders were broad and his back straight, and her morning tai chi routine was as graceful as it had ever been. Neither of them had escaped time - she in particular yielded to it with glad relief - but they had not been destroyed by it, either.

On the small table between their chairs stood a bottle of red wine, and a plate which had until recently borne a lovely selection of chocolate truffles. At the moment the couple's fingers were entwined, their hands resting lightly on the table beside his half-full glass. Talia held her glass in her other hand, swirling it slightly to admire the vintage, a 1953 Cote des Nuits.

Bruce narrowed his eyes in the slanting sunlight, tensing slightly, and she gave his hand an affectionate squeeze. Nightfall still brought on his protective impulses, even a thousand miles from his city.

“The children are managing perfectly well without us, Beloved,” she reminded him.

“I know,” he replied, his voice gravelly as ever. “Terry might not tell me if there were any problems, but Damian would.”

Her son would always report dutifully to his father; there was no need to point that out. “Do we not deserve a vacation, just the two of us?” she asked.

“After playing host to _everyone_ over the holidays? Yes, we certainly do,” he answered, settling again.

It had been her delight, truly, to see all the old familiar faces again, happy with the directions their own lives had taken them. All of them had blossomed, wherever they took root, and Christmas at Wayne Manor had been full of life and joy.

Also full of noise, and a certain degree of inconvenience, hence this getaway to the Gulf Coast. Here, they were anonymous, just another pair of snowbirds lazing in the sun. Neither of them were accustomed to such serenity, yet both found it a welcome change.

“I don't like being so far from my city,” Bruce admitted at last.

Talia squeezed his fingers again. “It is not solely your city, Beloved. You taught them all well. Be at peace. You have done enough.”

He sighed. “The weather here is certainly kinder.” January was gray and frozen in Gotham, but here even the nights rarely dipped below a springlike cool.

And then, turning toward her with a smile, he added, “The company is much more agreeable, too.”

Talia laughed indulgently, lifting his hand to kiss his knuckles. “Oh, if you find me _agreeable_ , I am surely losing my edge.”

“Never happen, not to you,” Bruce said, giving her hand a gentle tug to bring her closer. They leaned toward each other for a kiss over the low table, the press of lips full of contented satisfaction, where once every kiss sparked a blaze of passion.

They did have passion, too, and the lavish home behind them had been witness to much delight. It was simply that, among its many gifts, time had given them the ability to enjoy one another in more leisurely fashion, when they chose.

Talia was about to make a playful remark about swords kept for purely decorative purposes inevitably growing dull, one he would feel compelled to refute at length, when they both heard a new sound among the splashing waves and creaking wood of the dock.

An outboard motor was not _that_ unusual on the Gulf, but one nosing into their personal cove very much was. No traffic should have come this way, their privacy much cherished. It was a small craft, designed for speed, three men aboard.

Neither of them suggested that the men might merely be lost; the boat was piloted with purpose, coming directly toward them. Bruce pressed a small button recessed into the arm of his chair, activating surveillance devices and priming defenses. One more press would upload the camera feeds to Oracle and alert the children, but that was not yet necessary.

Talia drank off the last of her wine, watching intently, even as Bruce sat forward and planted his cane between his feet. The boat puttered in the last few feet, two men hopping out onto the dock, hands in their pockets. Bruce adjusted the cushion at the small of his back, setting it beside him for the moment. Talia let her wineglass hang from her fingers negligently, her other hand curled around the armrest of her chair. These men moved like thugs, all arrogant swagger; they would not see the throwing knives attached to magnets just under the armrest.

Years away from her father's machinations, Talia was still al Ghul enough to never be beyond arm's reach of a weapon.

“Can we help you?” Bruce said coldly, having seen the same cocky demeanor and drawing the same conclusions about who these men were and what their objective might be.

“Sure, Pops, just sit there for a second,” the first man said, coming out with a gun. Small caliber, short-barreled, and he held it at hip height. Talia sneered at the disregard for anything resembling accuracy. Meanwhile the second man tied up the boat, and the third climbed up to join his fellows.

All three were obnoxiously young, not more than twenty-five, and steeped in youth's braggart confidence. Talia looked past them at the wrapped and taped bags in the stern of their boat, and rolled her eyes. Drug runners. Not even a class of criminal worthy of any respect.

“You are ruining what promised to be a delightful evening,” she informed them, arching a brow in annoyance. “Go now, and we may even give you a head start before calling the authorities.”

“Shut up, lady,” the second man said, pointing a similar gun in her general direction. His casual grip was entirely unthreatening; had these men learned all they knew of weapons from _television_? How gauche.

“Do you know whose house this is?” Bruce asked, his voice dripping with disdain.

“Doesn't matter. We need a place to lay low for a day, and it's nice and secluded,” the first man said.

The second closed the distance, almost within Talia's reach, and added, “Play it cool, you'll still be alive when we leave.”

Talia and Bruce looked at each other. He shrugged with a small smile. “I suppose it was too much to hope that trouble wouldn't follow us here.”

She answered with a shrug of her own. “Quite frankly, Beloved, I am offended that we could not attract a more _interesting_ manner of trouble.”

The thugs had not expected to be so summarily dismissed, and the first two men both stepped closer, raising their weapons.  Bruce and Talia, who had been waiting for just that move, responded immediately. They no longer had the speed they’d had in their twenties, but neither were they as slow as the retirees these young fools thought them to be. Initiative counted for much, in encounters like these.

Bruce threw the cushion into the first man's face while Talia pitched her wineglass at the second, glass breaking against his cheekbone. That distracted them just long enough for Bruce's cane to sweep through the air, knocking the first man's gun out of his hand. The second had come close enough for Talia to accomplish the same with a high kick. Both weapons skittered across the dock and into the gulf's roiling waters.

The third man still had not drawn a weapon, but he was reaching into his pocket. Talia came to her feet with the dessert plate in her hand. Drawing it back, she flung it spinning across the little distance between them, its edge striking the third man just above the browbone. The good china shattered, regrettably, but its impact dropped the man to his knees. He wavered, cross-eyed, and slumped to the ground.

Bruce had swept the first thug's legs out from under him with the cane, using the momentum to get himself out of his chair. A well-placed kick in the chin from a heavy-soled shoe knocked that one out as well, leaving only Talia's opponent. He seemed shocked that two people their age could put up a fight, and that made it easy to sidestep both his ineffective punch and his attempt to grapple her.  Bruce had turned toward her, lifting the wine bottle as if to bludgeon him, and Talia said sharply, “I have him,” before stepping in and dropping him with a fist to the solar plexus and a knee to the chin as he doubled over.

Three men downed in fewer minutes by a pair of old warriors wintering on the Florida coast.  She couldn’t help but chuckle in amusement at the scene.

“Thank you for not using the knives,” Bruce said gruffly, putting both hands to the small of his back with a grimace.  His much-abused spine crackled in protest.

“Thank _you_ for not wasting good wine on these idiots,” Talia replied.  She rolled her shoulder experimentally, and yes, it twinged as expected, the legacy of her own old injuries.  Adrenaline and determination gave them the ability to finish this fight, but nothing could change the fact that they’d both done themselves too much harm in earlier years, and would now pay for over-extending themselves.  

“Are you all right?” he asked her, seeing her wince.

“I’ll make an appointment with the acupuncturist tomorrow,” she replied.  “And you should see the chiropractor. Perhaps we shall send the bills for those visits to these feckless young men.  For now, I’ll restrain them, if you call the police.”

Bruce smiled at her humor. His cell phone was in his pocket, and he dialed while she removed the men’s belts and cuffed their wrists and ankles together.  Two of the three were already stirring, but Talia knew she could keep them down for the brief time the authorities would take to respond in such a wealthy locale.  The third was the one she’d brained with the plate, and she checked his pupils to make sure she hadn’t done _too_ much damage.  Luckily the swelling bump on his forehead seemed to be the worst of his injuries.

“Who _are_ you people?” the first man said muzzily, peering up at them.

Bruce’s only answer was a harsh laugh.  Talia strolled past him, picking up Bruce’s abandoned glass and taking a sip of rich, well-aged wine.  She caught her husband’s eye and smiled warmly in amusement.

Considering their ill-considered attacker’s question, Talia just shook her head. “Child, you would _never_ believe us even if we told you.”


End file.
